I'm a Distinguished Professor in the Michael Graves College, Kean University. I’ve written over twenty books about advertising, graphic design, branding, personal branding, creativity, and drawing. On May 17, 2022, Routledge will publish my new book, Strategic Creativity: A Business Field Guide to Advertising, Branding, and Design. I’ve won numerous awards for my design, writing, and research, including awards from the National Society of Arts and Letters and the National League of Pen Women. In 2015, I received the Human Rights Educator award, 2016 Kean Presidential Excellence award for research, 2013 Teacher of the Year, and the Carnegie Foundation lists me among the great teachers of our time.
What's so compelling and important about this book not only for educators but for all designers and creative professionals, is gaining insights into the multitude of experiences of Black, Brown, and Latinx design educators whose essays are included in this volume. The narratives of the educators included are powerful, offering rarely heard perspectives.
On a personal note, I had the pleasure and honor of working with Professors Kelly Walters and Anne H. Berry in the Design Incubation Fellowship; and, I'm proud to say Professor Jason Alejandro was my student. I love Walters' design of Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators. It's a special treat for readers when the author is the designer because the design of words on the pages flow in a more purposeful way. That's the case with several of the books on my list!
In Black, Brown + Latinx Design Educators, Kelly Walters collects
twelve deeply personal interviews with graphic design educators of
color who teach at colleges and universities across the United States
and Canada. BIPOC design educators often find themselves in design
spaces where they struggle as the only person of color at their school
or workplace. Their impactful stories offer invaluable perspectives for
students and emerging designers of color, creating an entry point to
address the complexities of race in design and bring to light the
challenges of teaching graphic design at different types of public and
private institutions.
I’ve been running the MrExcel website since 1998 and have written 66 books about Excel. I am an Excel generalist – I know a fair amount about almost every aspect of Excel. But I respect the specialists who become experts on one part of Excel and offer deep knowledge dives into those portions of Excel. Cleaning data with Power Query, calculating “impossible” calculations with DAX, and then presenting them on interactive dashboards are some of the deep dives that you will learn on this list.
Kasper DeJonge works at Microsoft on the Power Query team. Before joining Microsoft, he was a data analyst, just like you. In this book, Kasper walks a data analyst through the steps of modelling your Excel data and getting it published on a Power BI dashboard. Along the way, his examples are designed to get you up to speed with the important aspects of Power BI.
Written by a member of Microsoft's Power BI team, this book provides a practical step by step guide on creating a financial dashboard using Power BI desktop and the PowerBI.com service. The book contains 6 chapters:
Introduction. Here I introduce the book, business intelligence and provide some history on Power BI
Understanding Dashboards and Report. Here we talk about what dashboards and reports are and how they are used in Power BI. Finally we talk about how to decide what to put on your reports and dashboards.
Collecting and preparing data. Here we install Power BI desktop, import data into…
I love gardening and learning about unusual plants but I find that many gardening books don’t provide a lot of useful advice. I grow over 3,000 different types of plants and have a background in chemistry and biochemisty. I teach gardening to new gardeners and garden design to more experienced gardeners. My students want to learn practical things like solving pest problems and growing plants with more flowers. I am always on the lookout for books that provide them with hands-on practical advice they can use right away.
My favorite garden style is the Japanese garden. It is a simple refined style that is so peaceful and over the years I have learned that you don’t need to turn the whole yard into a Japanese garden. What I do now is use elements of this style in various parts of the garden. The book, Japanese Gardening, will provide you with great insight into various styles of Japanese gardening and make it easy for you to do the same. Add a Japanese walkway into a normal garden and make it special. Or use some of the minimalistic plants to add a calming feeling. This book will give you many great ideas.
This inspiring book offers expert information on how to create the perfect Japanese-style garden in any location, large or small. It presents the history of Japanese gardens and the principles underlying them. Sections on the five classic Japanese garden styles (pond gardens, dry gardens, tea gardens, stroll gardens and courtyard gardens) explain their key characteristics with practical tips on how to achieve them. Fifteen projects for creating complete Japanese gardens follows, with clear explanations, illustrations and gorgeous photography. A plant directory then details the various types of plants with advice on flowering habits and hardiness, while the final section outlines…
I am a Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside. I was brought up in the family of a Chinese poetry scholar. Arriving in the States for my graduate studies at Harvard in 1982, I have engaged myself in academia here ever since. Acutely aware of, and deeply fascinated by, the cultural similarities and differences of China and the West, I have continued my learning experience, in my thirty years of college teaching, often from direct exchanges with my students. The books on my list of recommendations include both required texts chosen for my courses, and those I want to share with what Virginia Woolf called the Common Reader.
The handsome hardback volume, enriched by colored photos, consists of essays from a variety of contributors, including an art historian, a botanist, and literary scholars. It introduces to the reader the construction of Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, the largest Chinese garden outside China, and discusses its aesthetics in Chinese culture and civilization. It provides a valuable guide for both lovers of gardens and students of garden architecture.
From the Lake of Reflected Fragrance to the Pavilion for Washing Away Thoughts to the Isle of Alighting Geese, this gorgeously illustrated volume explores the Huntington's Chinese Garden - Liu Fang Yuan, or the Garden of Flowing Fragrance - one of the largest such gardens outside China. With the first phase of construction completed, the garden opened to visitors in early 2008. It resembles those created in seventeenth-century Suzhou, offering awe-inspiring views and architecture and evoking an era when scholars sought quiet, intimate gardens in which to retreat, write poetry, and practice calligraphy, among many other pursuits.The contributors to "Another…
I have been fascinated by history since I spent a year in Britain as a ten-year-old. I became hooked on novels set in ancient Greece and Rome and found it incredibly exotic to walk through old buildings and imagine the lives of the people who had walked through those same doors. In college, I began studying history in earnest and grew intrigued by China, especially Chinese cities during periods of upheaval and transformation. My first passion was Shanghai history, and I spent time there in the mid-1980s before the soaring Pudong skyscrapers that are now among its most iconic structures were built.I have since shifted my attention to Hong Kong, a city I had enjoyed visiting for decades but had not written about until after I completed my last book on Shanghai. My fascination with cities that are in China but enmeshed in global processes and are sites of protest has been a constant.
Lynn Pan, who was born in Shanghai before 1949 and then returned to live there early in the twenty-first century after spending time in many other parts of the world, is in many ways my single favorite Shanghainese writer. So, when I put together a list like this, the question is not whether a work by her will be on it, but rather which one of several excellent ones by her will make the cut. This volume is a beautifully produced one that complements Champions Day nicely, focusing on similar themes but coming at them via a focus on architecture and creativity. It is a book for those fascinated by Shanghai, for obvious reasons, but like a lot of books on the city’s past, it is also intriguing to read by those who have been fascinated by Hong Kong’s cultural and creative vibrancy and have been following the news about…
From the 1920s to the 1940s, no place was more modern than Shanghai: a veritable playground amid a sea of Asian and European influences; an urban population clamoring for all that was new and Western, but whose aesthetic sensibilities remained profoundly Chinese. In this rich social and cultural history of Shanghai’s art and culture, Lynn Pan guides the reader through the myriad world inhabited by commercial and underground artists and designers, performers, architects, decorators, patrons, as well as politicians, generals, and crime bosses. What emerges is a singular portrait of a city and its art—its life blood, in an era…
I am an author, illustrator, and award-winning creative director. I have loved to draw and make things since a young age, mostly wacky contraptions (inspired by my love of the Hanna-Barbera Wacky Races cartoons). I’m particularly passionate about making the process of creating fun, the five books below definitely achieve that, each in its own unique way.
Todd Davis, the author of Handy Dad: 25 Awesome Projects for Dads was a competitive snowboarder and a stuntman, and this is reflected in the choice of some of his projects, like the half-pipe, skate longboard, zip line, and climbing wall. Somewhat similar to Mike Adamick's Dad's Book of Awesome Projects, this book has a much more adventurous feel. I know my boys would have loved the bike jump and who wouldn't love a Jumanji-style rope bridge. The cover doesn't quite do justice to what's inside, which includes plenty of colour photography and nice design touches.
Skate ramps, zip lines, go-carts, and more! In this super-fun book, Todd Davisextreme sports athlete and host of HGTV's Over Your Head presents 25 awesome projects for dads to build with their kids. Busy dads can choose projects that range from simple to challenging and take anywhere from five minutes to a full weekend. Readers are given all the directions they need to grab materials that can be found around the house or at the local hardware store and get to work banging up a sweet BMX ramp or half-pipe, building a tree house or tire swing, or throwing together…
I am a graphic designer, writer, and brand consultant. I work with clients of all sizes, from multinationals to companies of one. Since opening my business in 2005 I’ve created logos and visual identities for brands in more than 30 countries. I run two design blogs Logo Design Love and Identity Designed. They resulted in publishing deals to write their accompanying books, and their pages now get millions of views each year.
The world of design could do with more wit, and the examples within are a wonderful testament to the difference it makes. Almost guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
Forty years of "witty thinking" from over 500 designers, including hundreds of visual examples and interviews with the world's top practitioners
First published in 1996, A Smile in the Mind rapidly became one of the most influential books in graphic design - a rich sourcebook of design ideas and an entertaining guide to the techniques behind witty thinking.
Now extensively revised and updated, this book explores the powerful role of wit in graphic design, making the case for wit, as the magical element that builds the world's biggest brands and engages people with messages that matter. Packed with illustrations showcasing…
I’ve been working with the Web since the 1990s. It’s been fascinating to see the progress and growth of the web design field through the years. As an information technology professional, I’ve held many job roles, including software developer, systems analyst, web designer, web developer, and consultant. I eventually discovered my true calling of teaching information technology and am a Harper College Professor Emeritus. In the early 2000s, I developed the curriculum for the Web Design and Web Development certificate and degree programs at the college. This book is one of the two web development textbooks I wrote to provide my students with lots of hands-on practice while learning new concepts.
I have been a fan of Elizabeth Castro’s Visual Quickstart books for many years – she offers quick explanations and good examples. This book is an excellent reference manual for HTML and CSS. It’s great to have at your desk when you need to look up an HTML tag or CSS property quickly.
Need to learn HTML and CSS fast? This best-selling reference's visual format and step-by-step, task-based instructions will have you up and running with HTML in no time. In this updated edition author Bruce Hyslop uses crystal-clear instructions and friendly prose to introduce you to all of today's HTML and CSS essentials. The book has been refreshed to feature current web design best practices. You'll learn how to design, structure, and format your website. You'll learn about the new elements and form input types in HTML5. You'll create and use images, links, styles, and forms; and you'll add video, audio, and…
I moved into content design from a career in brand and marketing, at a time when the discipline was emerging and not many people really knew what it was. Much of my time since has been spent educating people and organisations and sharing knowledge to help them make better content decisions. Throughout this time, I’ve learnt most of what I know through the experience of working with the design teams, but so many books have also helped me along the way and made my work so much better. I love content design – having the power to improve people's experiences with brands through words is so rewarding, and these books will inspire others to do the same.
Despite this book being a few years old, it’s as valid today for anyone who works in content strategy or design as it was when it was published. In fact, in many ways, I think it was ahead of its time. It features a number of tools and templates for content designers and strategists to strengthen the rigour and process behind their work. I like it because it helps anyone in a content role to think more operationally too, whether that’s putting a value on the content, or prioritising content creation. My copy was given to me for my first content design role, and is full of bookmarked pages I’ve returned to many times since!
In this essential guide, Meghan Casey outlines a step-by-step approach for doing content strategy, from planning and creating your content to delivering and managing it. Armed with this book, you can confidently tackle difficult activities like telling your boss or client what's wrong with their content, getting the budget to do content work, and aligning stakeholders on a common vision. Reading The Content Strategy Toolkit is like having your own personal consulting firm on retainer with a complete array of tools and tips for every challenge you'll face. In this practical and relevant guide, you'll learn how to: Identify problems…
I have been designing user interfaces since graduate school at Stanford, where I studied psychology and computer science. Over the five decades since then, I have designed many digital products and services, learning a lot about how to make them usable and useful. Two decades ago, I turned more towards sharing my knowledge and experience through writing (articles and books) and teaching (professionals and students). I’ve taught at Stanford University, Mills College, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of San Francisco, and at professional conferences and companies. Google invited me twice to speak in their Authors @ Google series, and ACM and SIGCHI have given me several awards.
When people browse or search the Web for information, they don’t read; they scan, looking for anything matching their goal. Scan, click, scan, click, etc.
Most web designers include waaay too much text in their sites, slowing people down, frustrating poor readers (which unfortunately is a large percentage of the population). Most text on the Web is simply ignored.
I like Ginny’s book because it does a great job of driving that point home and explaining how to cut the text down to what is necessary. It has become a classic in the UX and Web design fields.
Web site design and development continues to become more sophisticated. An important part of this maturity originates with well-laid-out and well-written content. Ginny Redish is a world-renowned expert on information design and how to produce clear writing in plain language for the web. All of the invaluable information that she shared in the first edition is included with numerous new examples. New information on content strategy for web sites, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media make this once again the only book you need to own to optimize your writing for the web.
